Hatch made his way through the cream-colored corridors to
the cafeteria, where he heaped a platter high with baked fish,
baked apples, roast onions, roast carrots, boiled broadbeans and
broccoli. The cold of the Combat College always incited his
appetite, and after a long spell in the illusion tanks he always
felt hungrier yet.
        As Hatch ate, he received congratulations. The results of the
extended evasion exercise had already been posted for public
consumption. Asodo Hatch and Lupus Lon Oliver had been the only
pair of Startroopers to complete that exercise successfully, and
they and they only were now to duel it out for the right to be the
Combat College instructor.
        "So I'll be here tomorrow," said Shona, the tenth person to
congratulate Hatch. "I'll be here to watch."
        "Tomorrow?" said Hatch. "Is that when we're dueling?"
        "That's right," said Shona. "Tomorrow. Decision by the best
of three. Or that's what it said on the public posting, you'd
better check."
        "Well," said Hatch, "it's been nice knowing you. I'm only
sorry you have to leave the College so soon."
        "So soon?" said Shona.
        "The graduating class has to leave once the instructorship
duels are over," said Hatch, reminding her.
        "I'm still a year short of graduation," said Shona, reminding
him of a fact he knew well, or should have done.
        "Sorry," said Hatch. "My head's full of fuzz."
        "You should get some sleep," said Shona.
        Then put a hand on his shoulder in a brief gesture of
solidarity, then left him in peace.
        With breakfast done, Hatch went to his room. A note awaited
him, a note written on green paper with a red pen and then stuck
to his door with chewing gum.
        "Meet me in the laboratory - lunchtime," said the note, and
that was all it said.
        There was no signature, but Hatch knew the handwriting. The
message was from Scorpio Fax, which reminded him that on the day
before he had seen Fax feeding young Lucius Elikin. What could he
want?
        "Wait and see, Hatch," said Hatch, and kicked at the
kaleidoscope of his door, "wait and see."
        Then he kicked at his door again, and the door at last
dissolved in belated obedience.
        That door, like everything else about his room, had been
customized to Hatch's requirements, so it would also dissolve if
he swore at it. Leaving aside his questionable command of some
small fraction of Motsu Kazuka, Hatch could only speak three
languages - Frangoni, Pang and the Commonspeak of the Nexus - but
he could swear in a fourth. That fourth was Dub, the language of
the Ebrell Islanders, the uncompromising obscenity of which tongue
was an achievement unique in the annals of human endeavor.
        With the door open, Hatch eased himself into the crampspace
of his room, and the door reformed itself behind him. Despite the
pregnancy-warmth of the massive breakfast in his belly, he still
felt cold, and his room today seemed exceptionally chilly. He put
on the winterweight cloak always kept in that room, sat at his
desk and ignited his data screen with a word.
        "I wish to inform on Scorpio Fax," said Hatch.
        "To his credit or discredit?" said the screen.
        "To his credit," said Hatch.
        "Proceed."
        "Yesterday," said Hatch. Then paused. It had been yesterday,
hadn't it? Yes, it had. "Yesterday, I saw Scorpio Fax feeding one
of our Combat Cadets at the lockway market. The Combat Cadet in
question is Lucius Elikin. Elikin was showing signs of injury. I
suspect he may have troubles at home."
        "Wait," said the screen. Then, after a slight pause: "Lucius
Elikin has not been seen in the Combat College either yesterday or
today. The reasons for his absence are unknown."
        "Then if I become instructor," said Hatch, "I will make it
one of my priorities to seek him out and have him resume his
scheduled training. Meanwhile, I have some urgent business to
attend to. Show me a list of all your files on Son'sholoma
Gezira."
        "Request denied," said the screen.
        Hatch was always irritated whenever the screen in its
defiance chose to denote one of his orders as a "request", and
this customary irritation persisted even on this occasion, when
the weight of what was at stake should have abolished such trivial
concerns.
        "Show me!" said Hatch, giving way to his anger.
        "Request denied," said the screen.
        This could go on all day, for the theoretically intelligent
low-grade asma of Minor Enablement which controlled the basic
dataflow functions of the screen had - in Hatch's opinion - little
more discretionary judgment than a cockroach.
        "Senk," said Hatch, summoning the aid the presence and power
of Paraban Senk, the Teacher of Control who ran the Combat
College.
        There was a fractional delay, then an image of the chosen
face of Paraban Senk appeared on the screen.
        "Greetings, Hatch," said the olive-skinned Senk.
        "Senk," said Hatch, "one of your ex-students is running riot
in Dalar ken Halvar. I'm talking of Son'sholoma, Son'sholoma
Gezira."
        "Of what is this student accused?" said Senk. "Of murder?"
        "As far as I know," said Hatch, "so far he hasn't killed
anyone. But the damage he threatens is infinite. He is preaching
religion. He is preaching the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth."
        "That's nothing for you to be worrying about," said Senk.
        "On the contrary," said Hatch, "it's everything for me to
worry about. I'm a citizen of Dalar ken Halvar, an officer of the
Imperial Guard, a - "
        "You're overtired," said Senk.
        "What!?" said Hatch.
        "Your startlement is out of place," said Senk calmly. "I'm
only stating the obvious. You've been pushing yourself far too
hard. You're over-wrought."
        "But I - "
        "You've been pushed and pushed hard," said Senk,
steamrollering remorselessly over Hatch's protests. "Here's some
good advice, which I suggest you take to heart. Go home. Go home,
forget the Combat College, forget the Nu-chala-nuth, then come
back tomorrow after a good night's sleep. A little rest will lead
to an infinite improvement in your outlook on life. That's my
advice. Take it."
        "Do you do marriage counseling too?" said Hatch.
        "I am the complete spiritual adviser," said Senk
complacently. "Go. Live. Sleep. Enjoy. Enjoy the great Festival of
the Dogs."
        "Dogday?" said Hatch, momentarily bewildered. "But that's not
till after the examinations."
        "I was joking," said Senk.
        "Joking?" said Hatch. "You should leave joking to humans."
        "I am human," said Senk.
        Another joke? Or did Senk mean to be taken seriously? Hatch
was too tired to work it out. He fell back on one of his people's
traditional answers to social conundrums: the elaborate
formalities of an immaculate courtesy.
        "I salute you on your humanity," said Hatch. "I salute you,
and thank you for all that you have done for me today. Much is
your kindness and much is my debt."
        Speaking thus, he remembered another debt, a literal debt
denominated in gold, and inwardly winced.
        "There is one more thing," said Senk.
        "Speak," said Hatch, still in his courtesy mode. "For
whenever you speak, it is the purest pleasure to listen."
        "To listen?" said Senk. "One hopes on occasion it is also
your pleasure to answer. Hatch, I need to know your requirements
for the battles."
        "The battles?"
        "The illusion tank battles. Your duels with Lon Oliver. The
best of three, starting tomorrow."
        Oh. Those duels. At the mention of dueling, Hatch felt a
twinge of pain from the deep-driven scar of a real wound, a
souvenir of a real battle in the world of the fact and the flesh.
        "You wish to know my requirements," said Hatch. "Very well.
My sole condition is that I should be given a handicap appropriate
to my age."
        A joke. Which Senk ignored, saying merely:
        "Do you have any special requirements?"
        "Well," said Hatch, "I require to know when we're starting, I
need to know that to start with."
        "Your duels with Lon Oliver will start tomorrow night," said
Senk. "So you can rest for all of today, all of tonight and all
through tomorrow's daylight. Now - as to my question. Do you have
any special requirements?"
        "For what?" said Hatch. "For inspirational music, battle
slogans, battle art, or what?"
        "Any of those or more," said Senk. "I can give you a list of
what's permitted, if you want."
        "I want nothing," said Hatch. "Except ... Senk, make me a
simulcrum head. A head of Lupus Lon Oliver."
        "That will cost you," said Senk. "The cost will be deducted
from your pay."
        "I know," said Hatch. "I know."
        But he wanted this head. He wanted to work some black magic.
And so he waited, while Senk fabricated him such a head, which was
delivered to his room by means of a transmission tray. Then Hatch
took the head, which was a very good resemblance of the Ebrell
Islander who was his rival. It was made of a soft rubber-analog,
and it was heavy. Hatch sank it on a paper spike.
        "What's that in aid of?" said Paraban Senk.
        "It's an aid to good dreams," said Hatch, patting the
simulcrum head cheerfully.
        "Perhaps you'd like to bathe it in artificial blood as well,"
said Senk.
        "It's a thought," said Hatch. "How long would it take to
organize?"
        "A few moments," said Senk. "But it'll cost a little more."
        "Then - no, scrap that plan," said Hatch.
        He could afford no further indulgences. He needed to save his
Combat College pay so he could buy such things as chocolate from
the Combat College cafeteria, chocolate which he could later
exchange for opium in the great world outside.
        "One last thing," said Senk. "Do you have a guest list?"
        "Guest list?" said Hatch, startled.
        "You know," said Senk, imitating impatience.
        "Of course," said Hatch.
        Of course he knew. Those competing for the instructor
position were free to invite the guests of their choice to watch
the illusion tank battles which would ultimately decide who was
awarded that position. To Hatch's knowledge, this was the only
occasion on which outsiders could thus be invited into the depths
of Cap Foz Para Lash. He suspected it was a surveillance
mechanism: suspected that when one increased one's importance by
becoming an instructor, one's very friends and acquaintances
became a subject of inquiry.
        "Well?" said Senk.
        "Let in whoever asks in my name to be let in," said Hatch.
        "It would be better if you specified," said Senk.
        Hatch conjured briefly with the notion of his sister Penelope
or the Lady Iro Murasaki watching him commanding a Galactic Class
MegaCommand Cruiser somewhere in the depths of intergalactic space
in a whitestar universe. Somehow he could not imagine it.
        "Nobody will come," said Hatch.
        "Perhaps the beggars at the gates," said Senk.
        "If they want to, then let them," said Hatch.
        "They are unlikely to be improved by the experience," said
Paraban Senk. "An important consideration, this, given our
dedications."
        "Our dedications?" said Hatch, puzzled to hear Senk talking
incomprehensible nonsense.
        "Our dedications to the ethic of the Nexus, which is progress
and improvement."
        "That's as may be," said Hatch, uncertain whether Senk was
being serious or mildly ironical.
        Then Hatch renewed his efforts to win access to all files on
Son'sholoma Gezira, hoping to find in such files information which
might perhaps be used to discretely blackmail Son'sholoma into
something approximating good behavior.
        Failing to win such access, Hatch at last gave up, quit his
room, and was soon striding toward the lockway, the triple-door
airlock entrance which protected the Combat College.
As Hatch approached the lockway, a huge machine came lurching
out of a side corridor. The machine was a dorgi. The dorgi. The
one and only dorgi left alive in Dalar ken Halvar. For all Hatch
knew, it was the one and only functional dorgi left on the whole
planet. And, as far as he was concerned, one dorgi was very much
one dorgi too many.
        The dorgi braked abruptly, blocking the hallway entirely.
Then it trained its zulzers on Asodo Hatch and it roared:
        "HALT! HALT RIGHT NOW! IDENTIFY YOURSELF! IDENTIFY YOURSELF!
WHO ARE YOU? DON'T MOVE OR I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"
        "Get out of my way, you overgrown turd," said Hatch.
        The bulbous machine in front of him responded with an ear-
shattering blast of its klaxon.
        "EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! YOU ARE IN DANGER OF DEATH! YOU ARE IN
DANGER OF DEATH! IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR BE KILLED!"
        "Go step on yourself," said Hatch.
        Usually, when a dorgi gives a warning blast on its klaxon,
that final warning indicates that its next move will be to kill
someone. But the behavior of this particular machine had been
eccentrically erratic for a great many centuries, and as far as
anyone could tell it exercised its klaxon simply because it
enjoyed uproar for its own sake.
        "WHAT IS THE PASSWORD?" roared the machine. "WHAT IS THE
PASSWORD? TELL ME THE PASSWORD. NOW! NOW!! OR I WILL KILL YOU!!!"
        "There isn't a password, you stupid lunk," said Hatch. "There
hasn't been a password for the last twenty thousand years."
        The machine, the much-dreaded dorgi which dogged the days of
every student in the Combat College, thought about this. The dorgi
was not very good at thinking, but it had the advantage of having
thought its way through this conundrum many many times before. To
its great distress, it always came to the same conclusion.
        "You are right," said the dorgi, in tones so close to the
conversational that Hatch was hard put to hear them after the
deafening onslaught of the earlier challenge. "There is no
passport. Therefore there can be no legitimate challenge. So you
need not identify yourself."
        "Yes, we've been through this," said Hatch. "Just get out of
my way, okay? I'm not in the mood."
        "Ah," said the dorgi, "but tomorrow we will go through this
again, and tomorrow there will be a password. But you won't know
what the password is. So then I will kill you."
        As it concluded this exercise in wishful thinking, the dorgi
emphasized its enthusiasm for murder by swiveling its zulzers
furiously. It had three zulzers, and each had seven snouts.
Ordinary dorgis, like those working for the Golden Gulag on
security assignments, only had one seven-snout zulzer, but the
Combat College was guarded by a hypercapacity heavy-combat
military dorgi.
        "There will be no password," said Hatch. "There is no
password today, there was none yesterday and there will be none
tomorrow. Understand? Passwords come from Central Command. Central
Command is on Charabanc. The planet Charabanc is on the other side
of the Chasm Gates. As for the Chasm Gates, why, they fell to ruin
over twenty thousand years ago! Now get out of my way!"
        "What you say is impossible," said the dorgi stoutly. "Chasm
Gates cannot and do not fall into ruin. There is a technical hitch
delaying the password. But I will have it by tomorrow and then I
will kill you."
        "You're ten thousand years overdue for a psyche review," said
Hatch. "You're cracked. You want to learn it the hard way? You'll
get out of my way right now or I'll report you to the Combat
College. After that - well, you know what happens then!"
        "You are bluffing," said the dorgi.
        But in its heart of hearts the recalcitrant machine knew that
Asodo Hatch was not bluffing. The dorgi was no great shakes as a
psychologist, but it saw that this time it really had pushed Hatch
too far, and if it pushed just one fraction more then Hatch really
would lodge a formal complaint with the College, despite the fifty
arcs of red tape time that would follow as a consequence.
        So the dorgi, grumbling, backed off into its side corridor.
        But Hatch had barely got past the machine when it came
lurching out again, blasting the air with its klaxon. Hatch jammed
his fingers into his ears. Despite the jamming, the dorgi's
challenge came through loud and clear:
        "HALT! HALT! HALT RIGHT NOW! TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES! TAKE OFF
YOUR CLOTHES! NOW! NOW! OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
        Hatch unjammed his ears and turned on the machine. As he did
so, from the far side of the metallic brute there came the sounds
of Shona's womanly wrath, an edge of murder in her fury:
        "Exterminated! I'll do the exterminating around here! You get
out of my way right now or I'll get a power wrench and I'll rip
your torque out."
        As the dorgi began arguing with Shona, Hatch escaped to the
lockway. The innermost airlock door dissolved. Hatch slipped
inside and the innermost door reformed. There was a faint hiss of
positive pressure.
        "Greetings, citizen," said an automated female voice. "Your
duty as a citizen is to vote. Democracy is our common duty ...
very well, very well ... you have your first clearance ... prepare
to proceed."
        The central door dissolved. Hatch stepped into the outer
chamber. The central airlock closed. Again the hiss of positive
pressure.
        "Have you time to spend with the ill or the aged?" said the
automated female voice. "Human Concern is our commoncause enabling
organization. Human Concern welcomes your involvement for the
common good ... very well, very well ... you have your second and
final clearance ... prepare to proceed."
        The kaleidoscope of the outermost door collapsed. Driven by
the positive pressure within the airlock, it spewed outwards
outwards in a mess of shivering slob.
        Hatch exited, striding bravely through the slob, only to be
accosted by a mob of beggars. They were demanding not alms but
justice, something Hatch was equipped to dispense since, by virtue
of being a captain of the Imperial Guard, he was automatically a
Judge of the Open Court.
        So Hatch spent a weary time trying to make sense out of a
three-cornered dispute between the beggars Grim, Zoplin and Lord
X'dex Paspilion, something to do with the use of the Eye and the
alleged theft of a considerable fraction of a much-decomposed dog
corpse.
        Hatch did his best, which was not easy, since the affairs of
the poor are typically more complicated than those of the rich,
and this seemed to be one of those cases in which everyone is at
least partly to blame. Hatch at last decided that Grim should be
allowed to punch Zoplin twice, and that Zoplin should be given the
privilege of kicking Lord X'dex thrice in the ribs, but that
Zoplin should have the exclusive use of the Eye until dawn the
next day.
        Having thus discharged his responsibilities, Hatch made his
escape, or tried to, but in Scuffling Road he was waylaid by the
noseless moneylender Polk, whose many demerits were increased by
the fact that, thanks to his noseless state, he always reminded
Hatch unpleasantly of his political nemesis, the implacable and
ever-victorious Nambasa Berlin.
        "Hatch!" said Polk, seizing upon the Frangoni warrior with
claws which gripped like pincers.
        Upon which Asodo Hatch turned upon the unfortunate
moneylender. He seized Polk's wrist and twisted it free with a
viciousness which almost broke the joint.
        "Polk," said Hatch, with murder in his voice.
        Then caught a glimpse of something sun-struck and striking.
        It was a knife.
        As Dog Java struck, Hatch blocked the blow with the body of
the moneylender Polk. Dog's murderous blade slammed into Polk's
back. Hatch felt the moneylender's body shake as Dog's
knifestrength hit it, and hit it hard.
        "Gah!" said Dog, realizing he had struck Polk rather than
Hatch.
        "You fool!" roared Hatch, letting Polk fall.
        Dog confronted him. For a moment. Gaping. Blinking. Combat-
shocked. Seared and shaken by his own audacity. And terrified to
realize that his audacity had failed him - and that his muscle-
pumped enemy still lived. Then Dog took to his heels, pelting away
in a panic, fleeing back toward the lockway. Hatch made no attempt
to pursue him. While Dog had the physique of a sprinter, Hatch was
a bodybuilder, and was built accordingly.
        "What was all that about?" said Polk, picking himself up from
the dust where Hatch had dropped him.
        "What?" said Hatch, astonished. "I thought you were dead!
Here, let me look at you."
        With that, Hatch took Polk by the shoulders and spun him
round. The cloth which covered the moneylender's back had been
knife-struck, ripping open a rent which revealed bright-shining
fish-scale armor, the smoothest and brightest which Hatch had
ever seen in his life. The workmanship was incredible, and,
assuming that the armor had successfully blocked a full-strength
blow by Dog, it was hard to assume that stuff so thin and yet so
strong was of local make.
        "Where did you come by this?" said Hatch.
        "Never you mind," said Polk, breaking free from the Frangoni
warrior.
        And, clearly disconcerted by the knife attack, and by Hatch's
discovery of his secret armor, Polk made his getaway, leaving to
a later date whatever discussion he had had in mind.
        Hatch then started to make his way toward the lockway,
intending to reenter the Combat College and bring Dog to justice.
But he was intercepted by Shona, who had seen Dog's attack, and
who restrained him.
        "You might get ambushed," she said.
        There was a lot of good military sense in this, for it was
most unlikely that Dog would have sought to strike Hatch down
unless he had been encouraged to do so by some kind of conspiracy.
So inside Cap Foz Para Lash there might be half a dozen or more
Dog-minded knife-strikers ready to rip up Asodo Hatch if he
incontinently pursued his quarry into the Combat College. So Hatch
allowed Shona to talk him into settling his nerves with a cup of
tea, and then, with his nerves settled - he had been shaken, he
had to admit it! - Hatch went on his way.